About ASBIS
ASBIS Group is one of the leading distributors of Information Technology products in Europe, Middle East and Africa Emerging Markets: Central and Eastern Europe, the Baltic States, the Commonwealth of Independent States, the Middle East and Africa, combining a broad geographical reach with a wide range of products distributed on a "one-stop-shop" basis.
Our main focus is on the following countries: Russia, Slovakia, Ukraine, Poland, Czech Republic, Belarus, Romania, Croatia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary, and Middle East countries (i.e. United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states).
The Group distributes IT components (to assemblers, system integrators, local brands and retail) as well as A-branded finished products like desktop PCs, laptops, servers, and networking (to SMB and retail). Our IT product portfolio encompasses a wide range of IT components, blocks and peripherals, and mobile IT systems. We currently purchase the majority of our products from leading international manufacturers, including Intel, Advanced Micro Devices ("AMD"), Seagate, Western Digital, Samsung, Microsoft, Toshiba, Dell, Acer, Hitachi and Apple in certain countries. In addition, a significant part of our revenue is comprised of sales of IT and consumer electronic products under our private labels, Prestigio and Canyon.
ASBIS commenced business in 1990 in Belarus and in 1995 we incorporated our holding company in Cyprus and moved our headquarters to Limassol. Our Cypriot headquarters support, through three master distribution centers (located in the Czech Republic, the United Arab Emirates and China), our network of 47 in-country stock points located in 29 countries. This network supplies products to the Group's in-country operations and directly to its customers in approximately 86 countries.
Our headquarters are home to our centralized purchasing department and our global control function, which centrally monitors and controls our global activities, including purchasing, warehousing and transportation operations. In line with our strategy of focusing on automation and innovation in order to increase our cost-efficiency, in 2002, we began developing the IT4Profit platform, our online purchasing platform for electronic trading with our customers (B2B) and electronic data interchange for the Company and its subsidiaries. Within this platform, we have also implemented our end-to-end online supply chain management system, in order to effectively manage our multinational marketplace and to increase automation and reporting transparency both internally and vis-à-vis our suppliers. Dealings through the IT4Profit online platform have grown to represent approximately 55% of our revenues in 2011.
We combine the international experience of our central management team with the local expertise of our offices in each of the 29 countries in which we operate. With our broad local presence, we have developed in-depth knowledge and understanding of fast-growing IT markets in regions such as Central and Eastern Europe and our diverse cultural, linguistic and legal landscape, which may form significant barriers to entry for most of our international competitors. The Directors believe that this advantage has helped us to quickly and cost-effectively penetrate emerging markets and strengthen our competitive position not only in Eastern Europe, the C.I.S. countries, but also in the Middle East and Africa.